Laura Lippman's “And When She Was Good” is a great ripped-from-the-headlines read.

On the outside, Heloise Lewis lives a quiet, suburban life. She's devoted to her son. She brings gourmet baked goods to school events when required. By all appearances, she's overcome a difficult, emotionally abusive childhood.

Beneath the veneer, Heloise serves an elite clientele as a madam and prostitute.

And it's a messy business.

Her employees and accountant are threatening to blow her cover. Her imprisoned former pimp is her business adviser and silent partner, but Val doesn't realize that Heloise is the confidential informant who put him behind bars.

Worse, he doesn't know he's the father of her son, or that she even has a son. And Val is dropping hints that he may have a way to get out of prison, a possibility Heloise never considered.

Her entire life has been focused on not getting caught, protecting her son and not answering too many questions about an imaginary dead husband or her fictional job as a lobbyist for women's issues.

When another D.C.-area madam turns up dead, Heloise's carefully constructed walls start to fall down around her. And she might be next on the killer's list.

Heloise has to try to figure out how to start a new life for herself and her son. She has no formal education but has to outsmart a shadowy enemy. And she's got to do it on her own because she has no real friends. “Too dangerous. Every person added to her life was a liability,” Lippman writes.

The edge-of-your-seat tale shifts between the present and Heloise's earlier years, and the way that Lippman peels back Heloise's complexity — and the masquerade that is her life — is masterful. Heloise isn't a warm and fuzzy character, but she's whip-smart, funny and a fighter: someone worth rooting for.

Lippman, a former reporter for the San Antonio Light and Baltimore Sun, has won seemingly every crime-writing award under the sun. She's best known for her 11-book Tess Monaghan series, which follows a reporter-turned-private investigator.

“And When She Was Good” is billed as a standalone title. But you can't help but hope that Lippman will keep following Heloise's trail wherever it leads next.

After all, the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem keeps going: “When she was good/She was very good indeed/But when she was bad she was horrid.”